Market research used to take four weeks and cost $20,000. Steve Phillips built Zappi to turn that into four hours and $2,000—and he started 12 years ago, long before generative AI made this vision sound obvious. Now, with nearly 300 people and $80 million in revenue, he's challenging his organisation to double revenues in five years without adding headcount by pairing every employee with an AI agent to handle the annoying, time-consuming work.

In this episode, Steve breaks down why entrepreneurs can actually be lazy (in the right way), why you should never hire yourself, why innovation is a mindset rather than an age, and how going from 40 to 140 people in six months was utterly disastrous but created an amazing culture that propelled the business for years. He also shares why he stepped aside as CEO, how he maintains his role as Chief Innovation Officer, and why the future is already here—we're just not utilising AI to do amazing things in business yet.

What you'll learn:

💡 Why entrepreneurs can be lazy—and why doing "work" might be the wrong thing

🚫 Why you should hire for your weaknesses, not people who are just like you

🧠 Why innovation is a mindset at 56, not just for 23-year-olds in garages

🤖 How to pair every employee with an AI agent to automate administrative tasks

📈 Why going from 40 to 140 people in six months crashed productivity for a year

⚙️ How to challenge your organisation to double revenue without increasing headcount

Podcast recommendations:

A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) - https://a16z.com/podcasts/

Hard Fork - New York Times / Platformer - https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork

All In Podcast - https://www.allinpodcast.co/

About the Guest:

Steve Phillips is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer (and Chair) at Zappi, a consumer insights platform he started 12 years ago with the founding ambition of turning market research projects that took four weeks and cost $20,000 into four hours and $2,000. Zappi was AI-first from the beginning—using old-fashioned "if that, then this" automation to speed up and democratize consumer insights long before generative AI became mainstream. After merging with a South African technology company early on, Steve scaled Zappi to nearly 300 people and approximately $80 million in revenue, still growing at around 15% annually with growth rates now increasing as they focus more on AI deliverables.

The company has raised multiple rounds, brought in a PE firm about three years ago to mostly replace VCs, and subsequently added new senior leaders with different skill sets (like an MIT MBA CEO who thinks very differently than Steve). Zappi had one genuine pivot—moving from automating work for other research companies to building their own IP and data asset. Now they're using AI agents internally for everything from writing quarterly business reviews to creating client proposals, and externally helping clients use their data to generate new product ideas and advertising campaigns. Steve's challenge to the organisation: double revenues in five years without increasing headcount by pairing every employee with an AI agent to eliminate time-consuming administrative tasks.

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Companies claim they're too busy for AI, and leadership teams are bloated and ineffective. The UK's productivity crisis won't be solved by working harder. These aren't controversial opinions, they're the reality Gerry Tombs is seeing as he helps businesses navigate the AI transformation after scaling ClearVision from a garage startup to £7 million in revenue and 100 people before a successful exit three years ago.

In this episode, Gerry breaks down why AI will expose leaders who aren't pulling their weight, why managers will soon oversee hybrid teams of humans and AI agents, and how the millennial generation (29-44) is perfectly positioned to lead in the AI era. He also shares the brutal lessons from scaling ClearVision over 25 years—from staying in hiring too long, to ring-fencing innovation teams, to building enough trust that his leadership team could hold each other accountable rather than relying on him to fire underperformers. And yes, he hit number one in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For—but missed the ceremony due to a migraine.

What you'll learn:

🤖 Why companies claiming they're "too busy for AI" are actually just terrified

⚡ How AI agents will work alongside humans in hybrid teams within two years

🎯 Why 50% of senior people could do more with AI—and why the rest will be exposed

📊 The delegate-to-elevate framework: giving AI the work you hate so you can do what matters

👥 Why leadership teams of 6-7 (including the CEO) are optimal for decision-making

🏆 How Tour of Duty hiring creates adult conversations and eliminates surprise resignations

Book recommendations:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Lencioni/dp/0787960756

Raving Fans - Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Raving-Fans-Revolutionary-Approach-Customer/dp/0006530958

Coaching for Performance - John Whitmore - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Principles-Leadership-UPDATED/dp/1473658128

Breath - James Nestor - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/0241289130

Drive - Daniel H. Pink - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/184767769X

Rocket Fuel - Gino Wickman & Mark C. Winters - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Fuel-Visionary-Integrator-Relationship/dp/1941631622

Flourish - Martin Seligman - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flourish-Visionary-Understanding-Happiness-Well-being/dp/1857885511

The Alliance - Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, Chris Yeh - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alliance-Managing-Talent-Networked-Age/dp/1625275773

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Most people think AI is overhyped. Nick Holzherr thinks it's drastically undervalued. After selling Whisk to Samsung and scaling it from zero to 120 people across eight time zones, he's now building Gitlaw—an AI agent that creates and reviews legal documents for free, making legal services accessible to small businesses that have been priced out of the market.

In this episode, Nick breaks down why fully remote distributed teams are the most effective way to scale fast, why async should be the default operating system for high-performing companies, and how he's doing the work of 50 people with a team of 15 by putting AI agents to work on everything from code to design to user feedback. He also shares why he promotes from within rather than parachuting in external managers, and how relationships built during one intense week together sustain distributed teams for the entire year.

What you'll learn:

🌍 Why hiring globally in a 3-4 hour time zone beats limiting yourself to local talent

🤖 How AI is undervalued—and why most businesses are only scratching the surface

⚡ Why async work should be your default operating system, not just a productivity hack

👥 How one intense week together physically sustains remote team relationships for a year

💼 Why legal services are fundamentally unfair—and how AI can level the playing field

🚀 How to do the work of 50 people with 15 by orchestrating AI agents effectively

Who should listen:

✔️ Founder-CEOs scaling distributed or remote teams and navigating hiring challenges

✔️ Tech leaders implementing AI and trying to understand its true potential beyond hype

✔️ Anyone building products where top 5% talent makes the difference between success and failure

✔️ Leaders interested in async-first cultures and alternatives to office-based work

Book recommendations:

Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charles T. Munger - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poor-Charlies-Almanack-Expanded-3rd/dp/1578645018

Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Management-Mortals/dp/1847924522

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie - https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091906814

Podcast recommendation:

Lenny's Podcast - Lenny Rachitsky - https://www.lennyspodcast.com/

About the Guest:

Nick Holzherr is the founder of Gitlaw, an AI agent platform that helps small businesses create and review legal documents for free—democratizing access to legal services that have historically been too expensive or too slow for SMEs. Before Gitlaw, he founded Whisk, a recipe and food tech company he scaled from zero to 120 people distributed across eight time zones (minus eight to plus eight GMT) before selling it to Samsung in 2019, where he stayed for seven years.

He's a strong believer that AI's value is massively undervalued despite stock market hype, that async work should be the default for high-performing companies, and that legal documents will become 100 times cheaper and 10 times faster within one to two years. Nick has built his recent companies entirely as fully remote distributed teams, having learned that trying to hire top 5% specialized talent locally is nearly impossible unless you're paying Google or Facebook rates. Instead, he hires the best people globally within a 3-4 hour time zone, brings everyone together physically once a year for an intense week of relationship-building, and orchestrates AI agents to amplify what his lean team can accomplish.

GitLaw:

https://git.law/?utm_source=Interview&utm_medium=Podcasts&utm_campaign=Curious_Leadership

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:04 Nick’s background in startups, investment, and launching GitLaw

03:05 Why AI will make legal work cheaper and faster

07:09 The case for async work as an operating system

10:01 Async culture as the foundation for AI integration

12:46 Tools and rituals for managing high-output remote teams

19:46 Why most companies underestimate AI’s real capabilities

23:00 Using AI to 10x output without bloating team size

25:58 Making legal services more accessible through GitLaw

27:22 Leveraging different AI models for specific tasks

29:45 Risk of AI bias, hallucination, and misplaced trust

32:11 Timeless books that shaped Nick’s thinking and leadership

35:33 Promoting from within vs parachuting external leaders

37:26 How shared history and company culture drive better leadership

From global finance to eco-cleaning, regenerative farming, and rethinking entire systems — Mark Jankovich doesn’t do incremental change.

He believes we’re living through a full-scale reset — and entrepreneurs have a responsibility to lead it.

In this episode, Mark shares why climate change isn’t a mass participation problem, why consumers shouldn’t be asked to make hard choices at all, and why some products — from bleach to diesel engines — should simply disappear.

You’ll hear how Delphis Eco was born from a moment of clarity on a family holiday, what he’s learned from two decades of being ahead of the curve, and why broken systems like farming, education, and climate must be fixed together — not in isolation.

This is a provocative, systems-level conversation about leadership, responsibility, and designing a future where doing the right thing is the default.

What you’ll learn:

🌍 Why climate change messaging fails — and why it’s not a problem for the masses to solve

⚙️ How removing bad choices entirely is more effective than asking people to “do better”

🧴 Why bleach, virgin plastic, and outdated products should stop being sold

🚗 The myths around EVs, infrastructure, and resistance to change

🏢 How to build a sustainable business by letting systems and machines do the work

🌱 Why soil health, education, and climate are deeply interconnected

📈 What it’s really like to build a business 20 years ahead of the trend

Who should listen:

• Founders and CEOs building businesses with sustainability at their core

• Leaders frustrated by slow progress on climate and systemic change

• Entrepreneurs interested in policy, regulation, and government advisory

• Anyone curious about regenerative agriculture, food systems, and land use

• Builders who believe the next wave of innovation will be structural, not cosmetic

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:00 Mark’s worldview on cataclysmic change and entrepreneurial optimism

05:02 Systems change starts with cutting off harmful choices

10:03 Lessons from Dubai and the supermarket’s slow death

15:20 The origin story of Delphis Eco and quitting finance

17:37 Surviving 20 brutal years to finally see traction

19:07 Shifting from B2B to retail and staying lean

23:42 Letting tech run the business and outsourcing smartly

25:46 Hiring for attitude and losing good people as you grow

30:42 Rewilding unprofitable farmland for soil and social good

34:07 How farming, education and nature can solve each other

39:12 Book and podcast recs that shaped Mark’s thinking

40:52 The power of paradigm shifts and the coming wave

Book & media recommendations:

• Harmony — HRH The Prince of Wales: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007413639

• Green Swans — John Elkington: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785786431

• The Ministry for the Future — Kim Stanley Robinson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356508841

• Future Noughts (podcast) — John Richardson: https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/future_noughts/

About the Guest:

Mark Jankovich is the founder and CEO of Delphis Eco, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of eco-friendly cleaning products.

A former City finance executive, Mark now builds systems that challenge the hidden environmental damage of everyday industries.

He also works with the UK Treasury and leads projects in regenerative agriculture — connecting corporates, small farms, education reform and nature recovery.

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🔗 Follow Dominic on LinkedIn:

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From a council estate in Oxford to a £100 million exit by age 37. Andrew Hulbert's journey isn't a polished Silicon Valley success story—it's raw, real, and packed with hard-won lessons about what actually matters when you're building something from nothing.

In this episode, Andrew breaks down the decade-long grind of scaling Pareto from his bedroom to a 500-person, £50 million turnover business serving the world's biggest tech companies. He shares why balance is bollocks when you're building, why bright yellow McLarens don't buy happiness, why you should retire early if you can, and how a council estate upbringing gave him the hunger and community mindset that fueled everything. This is a masterclass in bootstrapping, knowing when to go all-in, and actually achieving the goal you set out to hit.

What you'll learn:

💷 Why money doesn't buy happiness—but time does, and how an exit gives you that back

🎯 The truth about balance: why it's bollocks when you're scaling (and when it matters again)

🚀 How to build a £50M business with no funding, no backers, and no marketing budget

⚡ Why you don't need expensive marketing to make a massive splash in your market

👔 Why corporate life doesn't work for everyone—and why that's perfectly fine

🏆 How changing your peer group at 16 completely altered the trajectory of Andrew's life

Who should listen:

Bootstrapped founder-CEOs grinding through the early stages of scale

Anyone in corporate wondering if they should take the leap into entrepreneurship

Leaders thinking about exits, life after the business, and what actually matters

Entrepreneurs from non-traditional backgrounds looking for proof it's possible

Book recommendations:

The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber - https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

The Escape Manifesto - Escape the City - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Escape-Manifesto-Freedom-Meaningful-Living/dp/1783521430

Beer Mat Entrepreneur - Mike Southon & Chris West - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beermat-Entrepreneur-Turn-Good-Great/dp/0273708074

About the Guest:

Andrew Hulbert is the founder of Pareto, a business he started from his bedroom at age 27 with nothing but a laptop and an idea. Over the next decade, he scaled Pareto to £50 million in annual turnover and 500 staff, serving some of the world's biggest tech companies before orchestrating a £100 million exit.

Andrew finished working at 37 and has spent the last two years decompressing on a farm in Oxfordshire, reconnecting with his wife, kids, and the life he built outside the business. He's known for his unfiltered honesty about the realities of entrepreneurship, his belief that balance is a myth when you're scaling, and his conviction that money buys time—not happiness. He's also refreshingly candid about buying (and quickly selling) a bright yellow McLaren that made him feel like a "bus wanker" from The Inbetweeners.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:00 From council estate to $100M exit in 10 years

03:56 Five things he believes that most people don’t

07:34 What time wealth really looks like now

12:14 Balance is bollocks and why he went all-in

15:00 Zero marketing budget but still won the industry

18:09 Donuts, logos and the power of experiential sales

21:04 Founder should never stop selling big opportunities

24:58 Social media success doesn’t equal real success

27:17 Parents as hidden entrepreneurs and early hustle lessons

29:12 How he built a loyal leadership team from scratch

35:54 Networking done right and the secret power of downtime

38:27 Three book recs for first-time founders

42:23 Escaping the trap and how his path diverged

As 2025 draws to a close, we're replaying some of the show's standout conversations from this year. This episode with James Kerr remains one of the most thought-provoking discussions. Whether you're hearing it for the first time or revisiting the insights, there's plenty here to fuel your leadership thinking as we head into the new year.

James Kerr is a writer, coach, and consultant who specialises in leadership, culture and mindset in high-performing teams. His global bestseller, 'Legacy' has been described by The Daily Telegraph as “the modern version of Vince Lombardi’s guides to coaching”, saying that "for those searching for genuine keys to team culture, it is manna from heaven".

James has worked with Tier One Special Forces, the English Premier League, international cricket, Formula One, America’s Cup, Major League Baseball, and Olympic pathways. He has guest lectured at Westpoint Military Academy, Sandhurst and Eton College and written for the BBC, Independent, Times and Guardian. His corporate clients have included Google, Spotify, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co, Adidas, and Arc'teryx.

In this frank discussion, Dominic explores the synergy between individual leadership and collective vision, and the critical role of cultural evolution in maintaining relevance and potency. James shares how the iconic “Sweeping the Shed” mantra, revolutionised team culture at the All Blacks, and how these principles can be applied beyond the rugby field into business and everyday life.

Discover

The Role of Values in Sustainable Success: By embracing values such as humility, responsibility, and respect, the All Blacks created a foundation for long-term success, demonstrating that values-driven cultures outperform talent-driven ones.

The Power of Rituals and Symbols: The enduring significance of the Haka demonstrates how rituals and symbols can reinforce identity, unity, and purpose within a team.

Leadership Across Domains: The principles of leadership and cultural excellence are universal and can be applied across diverse fields, demonstrated by James’ work in sports, military, and business.

Neuroscience and Leadership: The interplay between neuroscience and performance underpins how understanding the brain's responses to fear and confidence can inspire leaders to strike a balance between challenges and support, fostering growth and accountability.

Connect with James - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-kerr-09a70bb

Connect with Dominic - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse

Book recommendations:

Viktor Frankl - Man's Search For Meaning - https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/347571/mans-search-for-meaning-by-viktor-e-frankl/9781846046384

Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow - https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/56314/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-kahneman-daniel/9780141033570

Daniel Coyle - The Culture Code - https://danielcoyle.com/the-culture-code/

Jim Collins - Good To Great - https://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html#articletop

James' book Legacy is out now - https://danielcoyle.com/the-culture-code/

Dominic’s book Mind Your F**king Business is out now - https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/mind-your-fking-business/

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Most service businesses drown in the chaos between what customers ask for and what they actually need. Kit Cox has spent over a decade building Enate to solve exactly that, an orchestration platform that helps B2B service providers cut through vagueness, assemble data, and deliver consistently exceptional service powered by both AI and human workforce.

In this episode, Kit breaks down the three stages of service delivery, why culture trumps everything else as a founder, and how radical honesty, not "fake it till you make it" builds the customer relationships that actually last. He also shares why the best hires might have learned their most valuable skills in drama class, and why lawyers and IT departments as we know them might not survive the next decade.

What you'll learn:

🎯 The three critical stages of service delivery and where AI actually makes the difference

💡 Why culture is the single most important thing a founder can build

🤝 How brutal honesty creates stronger customer relationships than polished salesmanship

🧠 The "thousand types of clever" needed to build a company (and why education only tests two of them)

⚡ How to systematise hiring so you're finding values and attitude, not just skills

🔍 Why "what are you most proud of?" reveals more about a candidate than any competency question

Who should listen:

Founder-CEOs scaling B2B service or SaaS businesses, particularly those in the 50-100+ employee range

CTOs and COOs managing complex service delivery operations

Leaders implementing AI and automation in service environments

Anyone trying to move from bespoke chaos to scalable, repeatable customer success

Podcast recommendations:

13 Minutes to the Moon - BBC World Service - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2

Mindscape - Sean Carroll - https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

About the Guest:

Kit Cox is the founder and CTO of Enate, an orchestration platform helping B2B service providers deliver exceptional services powered by AI and human teams. A manufacturing engineer by training and software engineer by passion, Kit has spent over a decade building Enate through three distinct phases, from bespoke services to a focused product for BPO providers, and now to a full-scale platform supporting service delivery in the age of generative AI.

Under his leadership, Enate has grown to approximately 100 people across the UK and India, achieving 40% year-on-year growth and reaching profitability in 2023. The company secured investment from Scottish Equity Partners in 2023 and now serves some of the world's largest service providers with a laser-focused account-based approach targeting just 100 key companies.

Kit is known for his commitment to culture-first leadership, his belief that successful customer relationships require radical honesty, and his conviction that it takes "a thousand different types of clever" to build a successful company, most of which aren't tested in traditional education. He champions curiosity as a hiring requirement and structures his company to act as one unified team across geographies, with India serving as a profit centre rather than just a cost-reduction play.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:42 The three lives of the business and early AI pivot

05:12 Five contrarian truths Kit believes about business and tech

07:56 Enate’s scale, global team breakdown and revenue growth

12:10 Why culture is a founder’s most vital responsibility

14:02 How values are taught, lived and kept alive at Enate

19:15 Brutal honesty as the foundation of long-term clients

22:05 How honesty leads to transformation and customer trust

26:16 Drama skills, sales success and the many types of clever

30:00 Hiring for values over credentials and traditional education

33:58 Why lawyers and IT departments are headed for extinction

37:44 The shift from IT-managed apps to integrated business tech

39:16 Scaling via customer success and embedded partnerships

42:36 Sales strategy, ABM focus and long buying cycles

44:46 Hiring systems, culture fit, and essential interview questions

49:04 Where Kit learns: podcasts, YouTube and curiosity sources

Some industries are easy to disrupt. Infrastructure isn’t one of them. But by focusing on adoption over features, clarity over complexity, and tempo over comfort, Shelley Copsey has built FYLD into a company reshaping how frontline operations work.

In this episode, she breaks down the real levers of transformation: making work visible, removing friction, earning trust in high-risk environments, and rebuilding leadership as the company scales. Her insights go far beyond infrastructure - they’re a blueprint for any CEO trying to grow a company inside a resistant or complex market.

What you’ll learn:

🔍 The root causes of productivity breakdowns in scaling organisations

🎯 How to build products teams genuinely adopt and rely on

⚠️ Common failure points in organisational transformation — and how to overcome them

⚡ Practical strategies for maintaining operational tempo as your company grows

🧩 How to evolve leadership roles to match the organisation’s next stage

🛰️ Why organisational visibility unlocks high-quality, high-speed decisions

Who should listen:

1. Founder–CEOs and execs scaling teams, product, and operations
2. Leaders driving change in complex or fast-growing organisations
3. Investors and operators focused on AI-enabled execution and productivity

Book recommendations:

Any Human Heart - William Boyd

Amp It Up - Frank Slootman

Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman

About the Guest:

Shelley Copsey is the co-founder and CEO of FYLD, an AI-powered fieldwork platform transforming operations for major infrastructure and utilities companies. She leads the company’s rapid scale-up across multiple regions, helping organisations deliver safer, more efficient, data-driven fieldwork.

With 25+ years across infrastructure, emerging tech, and organisational transformation, Shelley has founded, grown, and led multiple enterprise SaaS ventures. Her experience includes building GeoSLAM into a global geospatial leader (acquired by Faro), serving on the founding board of Coviu through its pandemic hypergrowth, and contributing to several CSIRO spinouts, including Emesent and PaidRight.

A Chartered Accountant with senior roles at CSIRO’s Data61, PwC, and KPMG, she has completed executive education at MIT and Stanford focused on AI and innovation. Her work has been recognised by EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Sifted 100, Tech Nation Future Fifty, and Startups.co.uk’s Hottest UK AI Companies.

Shelley is known for her leadership in AI adoption, scaling SaaS in complex industries, and delivering technology with real operational impact.

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Chapters:

00:02:04 - AI, Skill Shortages, and Industry Fallacies

00:04:25 - Worker Productivity and Motivation

00:06:34 - Shelley’s Move to the UK and Founding Story

00:08:24 - FYLD’s Growth Journey and Market Traction

00:09:25 - AI’s Societal Impact and Future of Work

00:11:45 - How FYLD’s Technology Works

00:13:55 - ROI: Productivity vs. Safety

00:15:28 - Adoption vs. Innovation in Construction

00:17:35 - Productivity Decline and Safety Regulations

00:20:22 - Scaling and CEO Time Management

00:22:08 - Leadership Team Evolution

00:23:58 - Board Composition and Support

00:28:05 - Systems and Scaling: CRM and Sales Process

00:31:30 - Go-to-Market Strategy and Enterprise Sales

00:33:58 - Hiring A-Players and Culture Fit

00:36:29 - Handling Toxic Hires and Fast Exits

00:36:52 - Book Recommendations

00:39:45 - Maintaining Culture During Growth

00:41:05 - Founder’s Role in Induction and Culture

00:42:17 - Work-Life Balance and Passion

Most enterprise AI projects crash long before take-off. Hype, bad data, cultural resistance, and “enterprise chaos” stop even the biggest organisations from getting value.

In this episode, Dominic speaks with Steve Salvin, founder & CEO of Aiimi, a data and AI company helping large organisations connect the messy, disconnected worlds of data, content, conversations, and operational history - and finally extract the insights buried inside.

Steve explains why most companies are still on “the first rung of the ladder,” why linking LLMs to enterprise data often backfires, and why the real breakthroughs come from agentic systems doing work humans can’t (or won’t). He also breaks down how to drive adoption inside your own teams, build a culture that celebrates experimentation and failure, and reinvent your leadership style as your company scales.

If you want to replace AI hype with genuine enterprise value - start here.

What you’ll learn:

💡 Why most organisations' data is too messy for GenAI to be useful

💡 The real difference between adaptive intelligence and token-prediction tools

💡 Why culture, not technology, derails adoption

💡 Power tools, champions, and performance management

💡 When to stop doing the work and start running the business

💡 The questions that reveal whether a candidate will raise the bar

Who should listen:

Founder-CEOs scaling from 30–150 people, CTOs/COOs trying to make AI stick, data/AI leaders, transformation teams, and operators frustrated that their organisation is “doing AI” without getting any value from it.

Book recommendations:

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers

Fierce Conversations - Susan Scott

Hope Is Not A Strategy - Rick Page

About the Guest:

Steve Salvin is the founder and CEO of Aiimi, a leading British AI company which he has bootstrapped since its launch in 2013. Their tech helps teams find, make sense of and retain control over their data, and is used by various FTSE100 companies as well as the likes of the FCA, PwC, and the UK government. Having worked in tech since the 80s, Steve is a serial entrepreneur and is passionate about building AI that empowers users and gives them more control.

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Chapters

00:01:44 - Aiimi's Founding Vision

00:02:52 - Disconnected Corporate Data

00:04:07 - Unlocking Value from Corporate Conversations

00:06:20 - AI Hype vs. Reality in Enterprises

00:08:45 - AI: Then and Now

00:11:36 - Practical AI Use Cases in Enterprises

00:13:35 - Extracting Knowledge from Calls and Messages

00:15:24 - AI’s Impact on Jobs and Productivity

00:17:25 - AI Adoption: Leadership & Cultural Change

00:20:01 - Engineering Teams & AI Power Tools

00:23:09 - Curiosity as a Leadership Requirement

00:24:34 - Celebrating Failure

00:27:26 - Agile, Experimentation, and Failing Fast

00:28:09 - Steve’s CEO Evolution & Leadership Lessons

00:32:02 - Book Recommendations

Can optimism really scale a company?

In this episode, Dominic chats to Dan Williams, CEO of Orean Personal Care, to explore what it really takes to lead through chaos - from doubling revenue in tough markets to leading with vulnerability, optimism, and Ironman-level discipline.

Under Dan’s leadership, Orean has grown from £3M to £30M turnover, becoming one of the UK’s fastest-growing contract manufacturers in the beauty industry — all while achieving B Corp certification and building a culture rooted in learning and care.

What you’ll learn:

💪 How training for an Ironman reshaped Dan’s mindset as a CEO

💡 The power of optimism when leading through adversity

❤️ Why vulnerability builds trust faster than authority ever could

🏭 How Orean scaled without losing its culture or values

📈 What it takes to grow sustainably - from £3M to £30M

If you’re a founder or CEO navigating the messy middle of growth — trying to scale your team, your systems, and your mindset — this is a masterclass in how to stay human while building something extraordinary.

Book recommendations:

Unbeatable Mind - Mark Divine

The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday

Start With Why - Simon Sinek

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E Frankl

About the guest:

Dan Williams is the CEO of Orean Personal Care, a UK-based contract manufacturer producing premium skincare, haircare, and wellness products for some of the world’s most innovative beauty brands.

Under his leadership, Orean has grown tenfold in revenue and achieved B Corp certification, balancing profit with purpose.

A lifelong endurance athlete, Dan brings his Ironman mindset into business — combining optimism, resilience, and relentless learning to build a company culture defined by progress, not perfection.

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Chapters:

00:01:00 - Dan Williams: Background and Personal Life

00:01:32 - Business Growth Journey

00:03:39 - The Importance of Optimism

00:04:53 - Vulnerability as a Strength in Leadership

00:06:44 - Challenges of Turnarounds and Maintaining Energy

00:08:24 - The Role of Sports in Personal Development

00:10:42 - Achieving Goals Through Determination

00:12:05 - The Impact of Belief and Support

00:13:22 - Leadership and Management Styles

00:16:03 - Promoting from Within vs. Hiring Externally

00:18:05 - Succession Planning and Employee Development

00:21:06 - Overview of Orean's Business Model

00:23:34 - Curiosity and Understanding Customer Needs

00:27:14 - Establishing a Five-Year Vision

00:30:02 - Building a Strategy for Growth

00:32:29 - Evolving Leadership Team Dynamics

00:33:09 - Time Management and Work-Life Balance

35:00.00 - Navigating Challenges in Leadership

37:19.00 - Balancing Passion and Time Management as a CEO

42:13.00 - Finding Balance Between Passion and Life

43:19.00 - Effective Hiring Strategies and Lessons Learned

45:23.00 - Mastering the Art of Interviewing

49:02.00 - Book Recommendations